ccs posts, articles, and infographics

Overcoming Hurdles to Clean Energy Commercialization

November 21, 2011 by David Levy
with 189 views

Despite the mounting evidence of severe climate change, there is a funding crisis for potential solutions. The Department of Energy released data at the beginning of November showing that global emissions of CO2 rose 6% in 2010, despite the ongoing economic recession. This trajectory is higher than the worst case projections from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in it’s 2007 Fourth Assessement Report. The impacts are already being felt. A new IPCC report concludes that climate change is causing more extreme weather, especially heat waves, heavy precipitation, and coastal flooding (though the super-cautious IPCC hedged on hurricanes). [read more]

IEA World Energy Outlook: “If We Don’t Change Direction, We’ll End Up Where We’re Heading”

November 14, 2011 by Big Gav
with 468 views

SP at TOD ANZ has a look at the latest IEA report - “If we don’t change direction soon, we’ll end up where we’re heading”.That is the prominent quote headlining the English language executive summary of the World Energy Outlook Report of the International Energy Agency released Wednesday.The following are selected passages from the... [read more]

The "How" Of Cleantech Deployment Is Key To Its Success

November 11, 2011 by Matt Hourihan
with 337 views

A recent report by the California Council on Science and Technology has rekindled the debate (see Andrew Revkin, Joe Romm, Dave Roberts) over technological readiness in clean energy, and whether we should be committing resources to innovation or deployment. I’m going to argue here that this deployment question is... [read more]

What Is Your Energy Philosophy?

August 31, 2011 by Barry Brook
with 384 views

People seem to like to infer motives. (Perhaps it’s an inherent evolutionary trait, allowing anticipation of your prey’s or predator’s next move?) I find that a lot of people get me wrong about my position on energy and sustainability — often deliberately so, I suspect. So here’s a post to clarify my position, and allow you to let others... [read more]

TCASE 14: Assessment of Electricity Generation Costs

August 17, 2011 by Barry Brook
with 704 views

In the previous TCASE post, I considered how various low-carbon energy technologies meet the following criteria: commercial readiness, scalability, dispatchability, fuel constraints, load access, storage requirements, capacity factor and emissions intensity. Here I consider the next issue: cost of deployment, based on expert... [read more]

Plastic “Trees” Convert Atmospheric CO2

August 15, 2011 by Silvio Marcacci
with 581 views

Recycling has always meant reusing materials like glass or plastic, and reducing atmospheric carbon has traditionally meant cutting emissions, but what if we could combine the two to make combating climate change profitable by recycling carbon out of the atmosphere? energyNOW! correspondent Josh Zepps looked into a new technology that could pull a thousand times more carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere than trees, and could one day power our cars and trucks with green gasoline. [read more]

The Complexity of Climate Change Policy

August 5, 2011 by Simon Donner
with 306 views

Buried in a couple recent news stories, which themselves were buried by the news of the debt standoff in the U.S., were a couple fascinating nuggets that reveal a lot about how climate change mitigation policy does, and does not happen. One is an agreement to raise fuel efficiency standards in the U.S., which will presumably also... [read more]

Canada Dishes Out $876 Million for Shell's Oil Sands Carbon Capture Project

July 9, 2011 by Nathanael Baker
with 325 views

Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE: RDS.A) will receive C$876 million from both the Canadian federal government and also the Alberta provincial government for its Quest carbon capture and storage project at the company's Scotford Upgrader plant in the Alberta oil sands. Shell's Quest project would represent the first oil sands operation to... [read more]

Coal-to-Liquids Is Not Just A Bad Idea--- It Could Become A Bad Law

May 17, 2011 by Lou Grinzo
with 256 views

Some mornings, it’s almost not worth the effort to chew through the straps. Green Car Congress: Bill requiring use of coal-derived fuels introduced in US House: Under this legislation, the President has one year after the date of enactment to circulate regulations to refineries, blenders, distributors, and importers to ensure that... [read more]

Arguing with Rocks

April 18, 2011 by David Levy
with 396 views

After presenting the ominous evidence inscribed in the rocks about the severity of our climate problem, a more optimistic Lovell argues that the oil industry can also be part of the solution, by deploying its political prowess, financial resources, and technological expertise. He makes the case that sequestration, or Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), is a feasible and cost effective solution for a significant portion of emissions. [read more]

IEA Report Shows Poland's Energy Future to be Based in Nuclear, Natural Gas, and Clean Coal

March 3, 2011 by Nathanael Baker
with 1,185 views

After reviewing Poland's energy policies, the International Energy Agency (IEA) concludes the country is on the right path towards a cleaner, more secure energy future. Nobuo Tanaka, Executive Director of the IEA, says his organization's recent assessment of Poland's new energy strategy (EPP 2030) shows the plan will shift the country'... [read more]

Carbon Capture: What are Economic and Social Benefits?

January 5, 2011 by Global CCS Institute
with 1,244 views

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is a vital tool in the global fight against climate change. With its important application to the capture and storage of carbon dioxide emissions from power stations, CCS has a crucial role to play in tackling greenhouse gas emissions whilst maintaining security of supply. The International Energy Agency... [read more]

Climate Change: The rise of a Google issue

December 22, 2010 by David Hone
with 1,100 views

As time rushes by it is too easy to forget how long some things have been around for or how they have developed over time. This is certainly true of energy and technology, where changes can take decades. We might think that the climate change issue is something that belongs to the decade just passed, but in fact it has distant roots as well. [read more]

A Focus on Canada: Challenging Times Ahead

July 2, 2010 by David Hone
with 795 views

The recent G8/G20 in Canada and the relatively small amount of time spent discussing climate change has again brought some to question the intent of the Canadian Government with regards the issue. The reality is that successive Canadian Governments have struggled to formulate a policy mix which will suit the country, but at the same time... [read more]

The Gulf disaster, and the future of coal

June 17, 2010 by Marc Gunther
with 1,961 views

If you like the BP oil spill… you’re going to love carbon capture and storage. Carbon capture and storage, or CCS, is the technology that offers the best hope of generating electricity from coal in a way that doesn’t further heat up the planet. When people talk about “clean coal” – a phrase that deserves quotes because coal is never... [read more]